


Giving Hostages to Fortune

by DesertVixen



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:41:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The beginning of the next generation in the Vorkosigan Saga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Giving Hostages to Fortune

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Macsi Liman](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Macsi+Liman).



> Dear Yuletide Reader: You are now reading my first published story for the Vorkosigan Saga, so please be gentle. I hope that this makes your Yuletide wonderful, even though I wasn't your originally assigned writer. If you like it, then thank my betas (who shall remain anonymous until after the New Year), but if you don't like it, all the blame belongs to me.
> 
> This story is set after A Civil Campaign.

There had been a great deal of discussion on the subject of the Imperial Heir.

The same conservative elements of Barrayaran society that had disliked Emperor Gregor Vorbarra's marriage to Laisa Toscane, a thoroughly modern Komarran woman were not any more pleased with the Imperial couple's decision to use a uterine replicator, rather than doing things the old-fashioned way. There were some issues which Gregor was willing to bend on, as much as he wanted to bring Barrayar into the galactic present, but uterine replicators were not one of them. Even if it had been his choice, and not Laisa's – as she might have allowed it to be, had he expressed it as a political necessity – he would risk neither his wife nor his child unnecessarily. _Life is bloody well dangerous enough. Especially life with me._ Bad enough that Laisa had precious little choice about when to have a child, but at least she was spared the risk of a body-birth.

That was the downside to uterine replicators – no excuses for failing to produce on time and to spec. Not for Vor with lines to Countships to secure; certainly not for Gregor and Laisa Vorbarra. A year's grace, one complete cycle of Vorbarr Sultana's endless round of ritual and festivity, for Laisa to "settle into her new duties", and then parenthood. Gregor had been prepared to wait another year, to ignore his muttering counts and solicitous High Vor ladies, if Laisa wanted to do so. She had chosen to go ahead, knowing that for many on Barrayar, giving Gregor an heir was her primary duty. It was one of the reasons he loved her so much, and why they made an excellent partnership. She had chosen him, with all the baggage that implied, and he loved her courage in doing so.

Replicators were getting to be almost fashionable amongst the younger Vor, a trend that he hoped and believed would be far more beneficial for Barrayaran society than the use of sex-selection drugs that had left his generation with a rather lopsided sex ratio. The replicator made it possible to ensure that one's wife would not only produce the necessary heir-and-a-spare, but that she would do so on cue, and that went a long way towards making it acceptable to the stuffiest – and most heir-obsessed – Vor. He shook his head slightly, amused – _a generation of girl-hungry Vor males, and now that most of us have accomplished the task of finding a wife, they've gone and made the old-fashioned approach redundant_. Some considered the replicator intrusive and clinical, as it removed the need for the woman to carry the child within her body, to experience pregnancy as their ancestresses had done. For Gregor and Laisa, however, there was something to be said for the fact that sex, at least, was one part of their life together kept forever and utterly private, never exposed to the microscope of Vorbarr Sultana society. Laisa would never be held up as an example of a failed Empress because of biology.

The conservative elements had expressed some displeasure over the fact that the opening of the replicator containing the next Crown Prince would not be public. Gregor had cheerfully left the task of dealing with them to Lady Alys, who was given to acidly reminding those wishing to lodge a complaint that the last Empress to give birth in public had done so more than 300 years ago. His son, and any other children, would have enough of their childhood devoured by Barrayar. They deserved a degree of privacy for their entrance into the world.

Gregor and Laisa had arranged for the replicator to be opened in their personal wing of the Imperial Residence, next to the nursery that awaited Barrayar's new Crown Prince. They would be joined there by Laisa's parents and Gregor's family – or those he considered to be his family. Depending on the point of view, he was either bereft of blood relations or drowning in them. At any rate, they were the people who would help him ensure that the next heir to the Barrayaran Imperium was not a raving, power-mad lunatic with criminal vices. The news outlets would carry the official announcement of the birth of the Crown Prince, and following tradition, Gregor and Laisa would present their son to the Council of Counts when he was a month old. Tonight was personal.

The others were already assembled when he and Laisa arrived – he had arranged for this occasion to be as relaxed as possible, but even had it not been ingrained in his guests that one did not keep an Emperor waiting, it was not likely they would be late for an event they had dedicated so much blood and bone – nearly their whole adult lives, in some cases – to ensuring. Looking at the tense, eager faces awaiting them, he was briefly ashamed for thinking it. They had not only come to see the Heir to the Imperium born, but for Gregor, and for Laisa, and for the child about to be born. It was a joyful occasion, not just because his child would put them all that much farther from being thrust into Gregor's shoes, but because they loved him.

His foster-father was sitting – had been sitting, and Gregor waved him hastily back to his chair, suddenly struck by how stiffly he moved – by the wall, watching his wife and Laisa's mother with their heads together. Logically, it had never been likely that Aral Vorkosigan would live to see another Crown Prince reach his majority. Logic was one thing; to find himself calculating how many years Gregor and Laisa's son might have to know him was another, and something he refused to consider tonight. Aral's life – too much of his life, Gregor thought - had been spent in the service of Barrayar, as a soldier, then as Regent during Gregor's childhood, next, as Prime Minister, and finally as Viceroy of Sergyar.

Cordelia Vorkosigan had done her part to bring galactic influences to Barrayar – and human influences to Barrayar's orphaned boy-Emperor, in both cases to the more-than-occasional dismay of the conservative factions who had wanted her role kept to a minimum. Gregor meant to live to see his son grown and married, but there was always the chance – _Miles and Ekaterin will do for him what his parents did for me, if necessary_. As if he had picked up on Gregor's train of thought, Miles caught his eye and nodded gravely, before returning to his new – and apparently permanent hobby – of admiring his wife. Miles followed the tradition of Vorkosigan service to the Emperor, after his own idiosyncratic, sometimes lonely, often lunatic and profoundly Barrayaran fashion. If one were being whimsical, they could trace the history of Gregor's reign on Miles' body, from the short stature and once-dangerously fragile bones he had as the legacy of a soltoxin grenade attack on his parents while Cordelia was pregnant, to the spiderweb of red lines Gregor knew he bore from his death on Jackson's Whole, and now the fading pink scars that ringed his wrists, mute reminders of the latest Komarran revolt. _Please God, history will call it the last Komarran revolt_.

Ekaterin Vorkosigan sat next to Aral, saying little, seemingly still shy in such exalted surroundings – or among such exalted company? Laisa went to meet her, after a quick squeeze of Gregor's hand, and he saw Ekaterin take her hands and smile, then pull her into a quick hug. _A pep talk on babies, and having them_, Gregor deduced, and went in his turn to have a quick word with Simon Illyan. His predecessor, Captain Negri, had literally died in Gregor's service in the opening throes of the War of the Pretendership, ensuring that the then-five-year-old Emperor was smuggled out of the capitol to the safety of Vorkosigan Surleau. Simon Illyan had performed the more arduous feat of living in Gregor's service, until he had been sabotaged by a subordinate desperate for his position. Now he enjoyed a retirement that he had never expected to achieve, but few deserved it more. Lady Alys Vorpatril, Gregor's - and now Laisa's – chief guide to Doing Things Properly, stood beside him, serene as always; she greeted Gregor with a perfectly-judged inclination of her head, and an Auntly smile for Gregor himself. He wished he could ask her what it felt like to be presiding over such a carefully-planned birth – complete with tea and little cakes, good God – after her own childbed in the caravanserai, hours after seeing her husband shot dead. A revered hostess and social leader, if underestimated as a political actor, Alys had not been the least of those who had paid the price needed to buy Gregor – and now Gregor's children – an Imperium to rule, rather than to be consumed by.

Her son Ivan Vorpatril lurked as near the pastries as it was possible to get without being obvious; he shot Gregor a grin, snagged two glasses from the table, and ambled over to press one into Gregor's hand. Gregor took a long sip and smiled. Another man might have offered felicitations, or made a joke; he found Ivan preferred the wordless gesture, not least because it made it easier to slip away while someone took the spotlight. There were those that said Ivan lacked ambition, but that was an unfair judgment. If he was needed, Ivan had no problem rising to the occasion.

Commodore Koudelka and his wife Drou were there, as was their right. Drou had been a bodyguard to Gregor's mother, Princess Kareen, and later to Gregor himself, protecting not only his life and his body, but also his childhood. Their eldest daughter, Delia, and her husband Duv Galeni, one of Laisa's fellow Komarrans, completed the group. He exchanged pleasantries with all of them until one of the doctors cleared her throat diffidently. Laisa, with Miles and Ekaterin flanking her, took Gregor's hand and turned him gently to face the future, as they would always do – together.

The uterine replicator stood on its own table, a pair of doctors in attendance. He could feel Laisa's grip on his hand tighten, and he caught her mood of nervous impatience. That replicator held Barrayar's future, to the Counts, Gregor Vorbarra's Heir. More than that – it held their son, their first-born. Together he and Laisa, along with the rest of the room, watched in silence as the doctors made the necessary preparations. When all was in readiness, they stepped back, bowing to the couple and gesturing them near. One hand each on the lid, Gregor and Laisa opened the replicator, and watched as the doctors cut free the webbing of blood vessels and amniotic sac, their hands squeezing together for support. The seconds stretched out unbearably until a tiny gasp of breath turned into an angry wail; the most magnificent sound, Gregor thought, that he had ever heard. He felt Laisa twitch beside him, and laid his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to him while the doctors wiped the newborn clean, examined him briefly, and wrapped him in a warm blanket before bringing him to Laisa's waiting arms.

Gregor watched the warm light that shone on his wife's face as she held her son for the first time, watched her gently touch her fingertips to his tiny features, and felt a wave of love and protectiveness wash over him. This child would have the security that Gregor's own childhood had lacked, as long as he had breath in his body. He wondered if his mother had sworn the same, and for a moment he wanted her as he had not for years – _you have a grandson; he might look like you, too soon to tell. I wish you could see him, and his mother._ They might have been alone in the room – in the universe, even – just the three of them, as he touched his son, felt impossibly tiny and perfect fingers curl around one of his own, then gingerly took him into his arms. Laisa smiled at him radiantly, standing close enough to touch both of them.

Gregor turned to face the room. "Allow us to present Simon Toscane Vorbarra," he said simply, watching the reaction of the room to the news. Illyan looked rather staggered, and Lady Alys beamed at Gregor before slipping a hand into Illyan's as she looked into his face, laughing at what she saw there.

Gregor enjoyed the effects of his surprising announcement for a moment longer, and then took pity on his foster-mother's impatiently restrained greed. "Well," he continued, laughing, "what are you all waiting for? Wasn't nine months long enough?"

His remark broke the spell over the room, as everyone crowded close to look at little Simon, now safely resting in his mother's arms. Gregor took the chance to take Aral and Miles aside.

"Laisa and I considered naming him Aral," Gregor said quietly," but we decided not to trespass on Miles and Ekaterin's prerogatives – or end up with two small Arals running around. Miles had to share his father with me all those years. Our sons shouldn't have to share your name."

Aral nodded. "I'm sure Simon is delighted and honored, if a little speechless right now. The middle name is a good nod to his Komarran origins, as well. A few of the conservative old sticks will mutter darkly about tradition, of course."

"Let them. It was –" Gregor had never discussed Ezar with Aral Vorkosigan; now, he likely never would. "It was time for a new direction. Laisa's father is just as pleased to have it be Toscane. Komarrans don't do the patronyms, and he would rather see his last name go down in history as opposed to his disliked first name."

Cordelia detached herself from the group of women attempting to persuade Simon to hold his namesake, and came to stand with her husband and son. "I think Simon would prefer to hold a live bomb," she said lightly. She embraced Gregor for a long moment, before going to stand between Aral and Miles, an arm through each of theirs. "You and Laisa do good work, Gregor."

Gregor smiled ruefully. "Hopefully you can tell me that in twenty years."


End file.
